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I remember several decades ago my sister, Delma, was struggling with the corruption in a large California school district in Contra Costa County. She was working as an executive secretary for one of the assistant superintendents of schools in the Mt. Diablo Unified School District.  She had access to the district’s financial records and found reasons to check into them. Soon she was telling me of her concerns about the uses to which the district finances and school bond funds were put. It appeared to her that there was little accountability as she described the charges for garbage collection doubling and a payment to a local architect for $240,000.00.

Being acquainted with someone in the accounts payable department of the school district in question I repeated Delma’s concerns to said friend. My friend was not surprised when I mentioned the $240,000 and the doubling of garbage collection charges. The friend stated that Delma wouldn’t be so concerned if she was better acquainted with the way things work in the real world. Then she volunteered, “We always pay our vendors extra so that the big shots can receive their goodies”. However, Delma was not confiding in her fellow school district employees, she only voiced her concerns to her family members and perhaps personal friends who did not work for the school district. The evidence of fiscal irresponsibility was so serious that she was fearful of any of the perpetrators discovering that she was on to their dirty dealings.

Something Delma said recently leads me to believe that she may have been speaking out against school district bond issues which could have stirred up wide spread ill will against her. She often complained to me about parents who called the district to complain about the lack of district funds being used in their children’s classrooms. “Why can’t they understand that district finances are not for their children”, was a common complaint to me.
There began to be some pressure for her to receive some counseling. I tried to talk her into accepting the counseling. Eventually Delma worked up the nerve to talk to someone at work about the things she had found. Her fellow employee immediately ran off to bring back someone from the personnel department. This made Delma so uncomfortable that she blurted out, “It’s about sexual abuse”, then she went back to her desk.

Now she was frightened and soon for good reason as she began receiving threatening telephone calls and the fear of people as dangerous as members of the mafia tortured her thoughts. She felt that someone was gas-lighting her by messing with things on her desk. Delma was a single parent with two boys living at home. She was afraid that her enemies might break into her home and murder her and her boys so she started walking around the neighborhood, when she got off work. She carried a loaded revolver in her purse; this way she might be able to confront her enemies when she was not at home with her boys where they could become collateral damage. Now my youngest sister became very concerned. She was not concerned about Delma’s life so much as she was worried about Delma’s sanity. Little sister was upset because Delma believed in conspiracies so she decided to take charge of things and swore out a 51-50 against Delma.

One day a police officer picked Delma up, confiscated her revolver and dropped her off at a Doctor’s office to carry out the demands of the 51-50 warrant.  When the doctor was through with her, Delma walked out of his office and the next day picked up her revolver from the police. Once the district found out about the 51-50 Delma was called before a hearing to fight for her job. A school district lawyer told Delma that the fact that her own sister had sworn out a 51-50 against her outweighed any arguments she might make against their demands. They fired her and she left without any of the benefits she had accrued, and her poor health made it impossible fo obtain another job. Delma should have been given a disability retirement and may have if she had been more cooperative.

Delma suffered with an inflammatory disease which was very painful as her spinal column was fusing. We had made it a habit to visit my parents on Saturdays and Delma would drive over and we would all have lunch together. It wasn’t long before her condition was so painful that she would park in dad’s driveway and we would stand around her car and visit with her because getting out of the car was so painful that she refused to come into the house. I don’t have any idea how much time my parents spent at Delma’s home helping her. Without an income, she charged everything and used nearly all the equity in her home to pay her bills. In this desperate situation she decided she would be better off in jail so she shot up the district office. I’m told that she emptied her revolver after administering merely one flesh wound to an unfortunate receptionist. She was reloading when they grabbed her. Delma was at least as good a shot as I am so I have no doubt that if she had wanted to kill there would have been six dead bodies in that office.

Jail was what Delma wanted so she refused a trial by jury and settled for whatever the local district attorney would talk a judge into. With several life sentences against her she would not soon have any of the hate-filled school district employees able to get at her. However, every time Delma comes up for a parole hearing that district attorney or someone from her office comes to the hearing full of fear for the danger to lives of district employees. Delma had tried to get the F.B.I. involved but that effort failed. Apparently she didn’t trust a mere district attorney to be able to help. As a stringer for the Elk Grove Citizen I had contacts in the state attorney general office, but when I tried to get the attorney general to get involved there were no funds available.

Delma is nearly eighty years old and has been in prison for about thirty years now. I wonder how our soft-on-crime California politicians can leave Delma in prison. I composed a letter which I planned on sending to our governor, but when I sent a copy to Delma she told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about, so I have given up on being able to do anything for her.